By David Gratzer (about)
Despite four heart attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney is alive and well and living at Number One Observatory Circle - a medical accomplishment that symbolizes the incredible progress of American medicine. Cardiac care has been revolutionized in recent years: Death by cardiovascular disease declined by two-thirds over the past five decades. Also, according to the American Heart Association, 88 % of heart attack survivors under 65 return to their job. Other medical fields have been similarly transformed: depression is treatable, childhood leukemia is curable, and polio is history.
Yet, American health care has never been more expensive. Between 2000 and 2005, health insurance premiums doubled. Employers fret about their eroding profitability and employees feel the pinch on their wallets. Though labor costs rose, average family income is down in the last half decade, largely because of rising health costs.
Many health care experts see rising health care costs as an inevitable and unavoidable consequence of advances in medical science. So the only choice, in their view, Americans have is between: paying more or embracing some type of rationing.
Professor Uwe Reinhardt of Princeton University sees health care swallowing up 28 % of GDP by 2030 (up from 16% now), but asks: What would we rather spend the money on? "SUVs" In contrast, Brookings Institute senior fellow Henry Aaron prescribes a bitter, if sugar-coated, pill: "Intelligent health care rationing - limiting the availability of care that costs society more to produce than it is worth to patients - is not a horror to be avoided. It's a regretfully necessary limit to sustain fair access to health care that is worth what it costs."
Both of these approaches treat health care spending as if it was sui generis. In most other sectors of the economy, costs fall with advancements in technology, not rise. But the advancement of medical science has, curiously, not followed the trend; progress has begotten greater expense. In fact, even a lack of progress in health care is often accompanied by rising cost.
read more Free Market Cure - What's Wrong With American Health Care?
Despite four heart attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney is alive and well and living at Number One Observatory Circle - a medical accomplishment that symbolizes the incredible progress of American medicine. Cardiac care has been revolutionized in recent years: Death by cardiovascular disease declined by two-thirds over the past five decades. Also, according to the American Heart Association, 88 % of heart attack survivors under 65 return to their job. Other medical fields have been similarly transformed: depression is treatable, childhood leukemia is curable, and polio is history.
Yet, American health care has never been more expensive. Between 2000 and 2005, health insurance premiums doubled. Employers fret about their eroding profitability and employees feel the pinch on their wallets. Though labor costs rose, average family income is down in the last half decade, largely because of rising health costs.
Many health care experts see rising health care costs as an inevitable and unavoidable consequence of advances in medical science. So the only choice, in their view, Americans have is between: paying more or embracing some type of rationing.
Professor Uwe Reinhardt of Princeton University sees health care swallowing up 28 % of GDP by 2030 (up from 16% now), but asks: What would we rather spend the money on? "SUVs" In contrast, Brookings Institute senior fellow Henry Aaron prescribes a bitter, if sugar-coated, pill: "Intelligent health care rationing - limiting the availability of care that costs society more to produce than it is worth to patients - is not a horror to be avoided. It's a regretfully necessary limit to sustain fair access to health care that is worth what it costs."
Both of these approaches treat health care spending as if it was sui generis. In most other sectors of the economy, costs fall with advancements in technology, not rise. But the advancement of medical science has, curiously, not followed the trend; progress has begotten greater expense. In fact, even a lack of progress in health care is often accompanied by rising cost.
read more Free Market Cure - What's Wrong With American Health Care?
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